Yucatan — one of Mexico's safest spots — is full of Maya lore and wonder

The Uxmal Archeological Zone is where tourists gather at the base of the Pyramid of the Magician.

Christopher Reynolds, MCT

Summary

One of the safest and most rewarding places in Mexico these days is the same steamy, lizard-ridden Maya stomping ground where ritual sacrifice was once business as usual, where the alleged apocalypse — the end of the Maya calendar — is barely 50 shopping days away.

YUCATAN PENINSULA, Mexico (MCT) — What's the Mexican drug-war body count now? 47,000? Ever since the killings began to escalate in late 2006, I've been visiting the country less and choosing spots more carefully.

But the Yucatan Peninsula was an easy call. One of the safest and most rewarding places in Mexico these days is the same steamy, lizard-ridden Maya stomping ground where ritual sacrifice was once business as usual, where the alleged apocalypse — the end of the Maya calendar — is barely 50 shopping days away.

In May, I flew to Merida, Yucatan's capital, about 500 miles south of New Orleans. By noon on the first full day, I was clinging to the steeply pitched steps of the Great Temple of Uxmal, about 50 miles south of Merida, about 100 feet above ground, incalculably far from the 21st century.

From my perch at the temple's highest point, a horizon of green treetops spread before me, interrupted only by jutting stone marvels such as the Pyramid of the Magician, the Nunnery Quadrangle and the stately House of the Governor.

Uxmal is not Yucatan's marquee attraction. That would be the now-unclimbable pyramid at Chichen Itza about 120 miles east. But Yucatan is full of wonders that allow better access and draw smaller crowds than Chichen Itza. If you want a workout, a few subterranean thrills and a glimpse of what North American civilization looked like before and just after the Spaniards got here, it's a good place to start.

The Uxmal complex, younger than Egypt's best-known pyramids but older than Peru's Machu Picchu, was built more than a millennium ago. At its peak, it housed perhaps 25,000 Mayas.

Nowadays at Uxmal, there's a nighttime light show and a handful of hotels within walking distance. Like gift shops throughout Yucatan, the one at Uxmal is well-stocked with books suggesting that the Mayas predicted the end of the world for Dec. 21, 2012. And there's no denying the creepiness of the ruins' mascots: the iguanas, which race bowlegged across the grass, climbing ancient steps with eerie agility.

Lock eyes with an iguana long enough, and an apocalypse begins to seem inevitable. But then look away, and another ruin demands climbing. Or a set of stairs will lead you to a cool, blue cenote — sinkholes and water-filled underground caverns that are scattered all over the peninsula.

To give scenes like that my full attention, I didn't bother with Cancun, the tourist magnet 200 miles east, or the several Yucatan haciendas that have been converted into restaurants and luxury hotels. In fact, I never strayed more than 150 miles from Merida.

At Kabah, just down the road from Uxmal, hundreds of loose stones are laid out like laundry in need of sorting, and one long wall (known as the Codz Poop) is crowded with bug-eyed, long-nosed stone faces carved to honor the rain god Chac. At Labna, an ancient gate leads nowhere special but might be the most graceful, haunting Maya portal still standing.

At Ticul, I had hot chocolate. Not by choice, but because the EcoMuseo del Cacao, opened in 2011, includes a hot chocolate-making demonstration among its many exhibits. (There was also a human skeleton and some sentences about the Maya's ritual sacrifices.) The temperature must have been 95 degrees outside — which is why many people visit in winter. But the cook so graciously offered the steaming cup, I had to say yes.

Throughout these various sites, Mexico's most notorious 21st century peril — the drug war — seemed far away. And statistics suggest that it is.

In the Mexican newspaper Reforma's tally of drug-war killings, Yucatan logged just two such deaths in 2011 — the lowest figure among all 31 Mexican states. The U.S. State Department's most recent Travel Warning on Mexico (issued in February) bristles with border-state cautions and alarming numbers, including the 47,515 drug-war deaths nationwide as of September 2011. But the State Department's experts have reported no such troubles in Yucatan.